On the serious note, knowing Joice as far as the comic goes, I don’t believe she considers animals as an intimacy she has to actively avoid. If her dog shoved his thingamajobber into her face by accident, then yes, but not otherwise.

FINE! Put burn the hammer, put the ashes in a safe, throw away the key, brick up the safe behind a wall, throw away the bricklayer, burn the the wall, put the ashes in a box, put that box inside of another box, mail that box to yourself and when it arrives SMASH IT WITH ANOTHER HAMMER.

Joyce: If I don’t wear sandal’s I might get SHOWER PREGNANT.
Howard and Becky: OMG!
Becky: If I see her without a hat I might get LESBIAN PREGNANT.
Howard and Joyce: OMG!
Howard: If me and my boyfriend (when I have one…) touch dongs we might get MAN PREGNANT.
Joyce, Becky and Danny: OMG!

Roz: For God’s sake, listen, this is how it works…
Joyce, Becky and Howard: OMG!

I’m with Sierra here. Went barefoot a chunk of college – except of course for the snowy parts.

Still, how much of this is a real concern and how much is just “gross”. I get that athlete’s foot is a possibility and showers are the kind of environment where it can more easily spread, but is it really common enough to be a serious concern? Worth taking special precautions for? Certainly not anything I even considered when I was in school.

The dorm I stayed in freshman year didn’t have a huge communal bathroom for the whole floor, but rather I shared one bathroom with just one other room, and for the most part, it was just me and two other guys in the other room.

She’s accepted atheists and homosexuality, I think that doesn’t leaves much in her worldview that’s worse than gross shower drains. I’m sure she could be convinced, but do you really want to break her?

Turn off your computer and make sure it powers down
Drop it in a forty-three foot hole in the ground
Bury it completely, rocks and boulders should be fine
Then burn all the clothes you may have worn any time you were onliiiine!

I don’t think present day Hannelore could handle communal showers much less her freshman age self. However this is an alternate universe since we saw Faye once with her Mom and Dad so it might be possible her OCD is manageable.

Panel One: Turning a joke into a serious question seems to be the quickest way to find out more about Joyce’s thoughts. Sarah’s doing her best to actually understand this one. And his is a fair question – why NOT just buy sandals, since she’s hated it since she got here?

Also, seeing Roz campaigning among the other girls. Building her casual relationships and checking in can only be an asset – so long as they’re kept casual and don’t seem TOO friendly to the admins.

Also, who’s the girl with black hair? I don’t believe we’ve met her yet! She seems a bit like goth Robin – is it Bloodrose?

Panel Two: Considering Sarah’s family doesn’t have much money here and Joyce’s family is at least middle class and she spends that much on the regular for things like comics, I can’t fault her incredulity here. Joyce could easily afford a pair. The problem is…

Panel Three: Sarah underestimates Joyce’s germaphobia. Never underestimate a germaphobe. They will go to strange seeming lengths for weird seeming reasons. Joyce isn’t too bad – she’s not washing her hands so often they’re full of cuts and getting infections she has to squeeze out, or washing off every time she goes outside, etc. She just refuses to share food and complains about the showers every day. Becky mentioned this before, and honestly it isn’t the worst case ever. She’s fussy, but not detrimental to her own life.

And Sarah is half concerned and half confused about this. Just…Joyce, what are the words coming out of your mouth right now? Poor big sis wants to understand her baby sis.

Panel Four: Sarah seems incredulous and trying not to be sarcastic here, but it is hard when the solution seems obvious. But nope. No cigar. You keep your sink clean.

…I guess you could throw them in the laundry? The stuff in the laundry is presumably gross too. Why not? Or take them to a laundromat if you’re worried about that touching non-gross stuff.

Also, I love the stunned indigence on Joyce’s face at the suggestion she wash her gross sandals in her clean sink. RUDE Sarah.

….Though isn’t it far grosser to touch them with your bare feet? Why not wait until the showers are cleaned at night? It might be a bit inconvenient, but I can see Joyce camping out waiting for the showers to be cleaned. Or is that a weekly thing? If so, sorry Joyce.

Panel Five: Sarah’s face here is fun. She looks torn between concern for Joyce, and exhausted exasperation. Just…Joyce is an endless list of neuroses that is full of facets and contradictions and each of them has at least 10 corroborating neuroses. She means well though, which is why its relatively easy to forgive her for crappy things she does once she realizes she was wrong and why. Sarah is helping her along, but now she’s getting to see some of what she’s helping her away from.

Also, Joyce, you delightful goober. You really DON’T do anything by halves. I know Sarah said it before, but wow. Taking things to less drastic measures is not in her skill set – toning things down is going to be a hard learned skill. I’m sure she’ll manage it though. Hopefully she’ll relax a little. And if not, I hope she gets someone to talk to. Actually, regardless, she should get someone to talk to for Ryan and Toedad and her crises of faith and possibly this thing about germs though I don’t think that’s necessary quite YET. …Point is, Joyce could use a therapist. Maybe not as crucially as Amber, Ruth, or Billie but it couldn’t hurt. Someone? Please? Depending on the church she may not be big on therapists, except as authority figures, but it’d be beneficial I think.

Upon reading other comments from users who have OCD or have experience with those who do, I’d like to retract that ‘Joyce isn’t too bad’ comment. Whether she has OCD or not, this is apparently in fact a sign of badness. I was basing this off my experiences with a germaphobe without doing enough research into it and that was shitty. I’m sorry guys.

No harm done. And you were right that it could be much worse. Her OCD (not to be confused with OCPD) is agitated by everything going on sure, but it’s not forcing her into solitude, causing her to harm herself (chopping off foot comment aside), causing her to put herself or others in danger, substantially cutting into basic needs like sleeping and eating, causing property damage, interfering in schoolwork, causing frequent severe panic attacks (she has been having minor ones but bad ones are rare), or causing her to have a mental break down or need hospitalization. She does need help for sure and would benefit from therapy and medication, but she’s currently functional. I worry what will happen once she has that talk with Dorothy though…

Yeah, I know a germaphobe who scrubbed their hands so much they’ve gotten cuts and had to squeeze them to keep infection out. That’s my realm of reference for this kind of thing. Joyce is not good, but she’s not hurting herself yet.

Truth be told, I’m more worried Dorothy will stall and Sal will accidentally let it slip because she thinks Dorothy told her already.

I love Sarahs attitude. It would be SO EASY to just dismiss Joyce as being “too Joyce”, but she goes the extra mile to understand how she works and the depth of her neuroses.

Big sis is doing good.

And frankly it’s a relief that Joyce is in a state where the worst of her immediate problems are about gross showers. Becky is in a better place than ever since the escape from Anderson’s. Her fear of Ryan is under control (frankly, I think decking ToeDad might have helped her with her fear. If the real Ryan comes sniffing, Joyce has a plan). She knows that at least one parent and at least one sibling has her back.

Now Joyce is in a place where she can comfort Dotty when her campaign goes badly, try to keep Becky grounded when she sails away into a hat-filled wacky-land, do her cute little match-making-schemes with Big Sis and worry about the ungodly grossness that is the communal shower. Little sis is feeling much better, and it’s such a relief.

Sarah is a pretty great big sis for Joyce’s collection (let’s see, at my count she has 3, maybe 4 if I’m right Sal’s becoming more like a big sister to her).

AGREED. I am so happy that after the last week, her biggest issue right now is showers being gross. I’m worried about the Ryan thing going sour – I think it’d depend if she’s more afraid of him or of Toedad. Toedad pointed a rifle in her face, but that was overwhelmed by her fury at what he was doing to Becky and what he represented for hr community and therefore her faith, and that gave her a huge adrenaline boost. With Ryan, every time she’s been confronted with the idea of him, she’s frozen up and had a PTSD attack. She did good in the moment he was there, whacking him with the glass, but since then, she’s seemed mostly scared. Hopefully Dorothy will tell her so she can prepare herself before then (or before Sal lets it slip since she seems to think Dorothy told her already).

Actually this is pretty much how my OCD started to really manifest in University too. Eventually I just started worrying about the imagined “contamination” travelling back to me from anything. Including wanting to tear off the skin and burn it, that is 100% the correct feeling, so well done Willis. I’ve had a round of therapy for it and it unfortunately didn’t help too much, its still pervasive in my entire life, causes me a lot of trouble and has helped make me lose people I’ve loved from my life. It really sucks. Going back into therapy eventually but its difficult to work up the motivation too when you find it hard to believe life can get ever get better.
Goodluck to Joyce (Hopefully its not something that would get worse for her like it did me) and anyone else with mental illnesses.

I assume that the showers get cleaned every day including shower clog, so the smart thing is to be the first one to use the showers after the cleaner has done the cleaning, that way you won’t have to deal with the dreaded pubes.

You know, freshman year of college I had shower sandals, but I used them for less than a week before it just became an inconvenience to carry them everywhere. My dorm was co-ed, so there were icky boys using the shower before me, but that was the year I walked around barefoot most of the time anyways, so I figured the gross would get absorbed in the ground outside somewhere.

I still need to wrap presents. However,
This is exactly what OCD feels like. I used to be so bad I could not touch doorknobs, light switches, faucets, sinks of any kind, or toilets. I still get panic attacks when faced with really gross bathrooms and college dorms have been hard for me. OCD is hard to understand if you haven’t experienced it and impossible to rationalize. I am fine with being barefoot outside, but terrified of bathrooms. I wish more people understood it, and didn’t try to tell me off for being silly or ridiculous or irrational.

You are none of those things. Have you went to a therapist for it? Meds are also a great help.

A lot of people don’t realize all the faces of OCD. The obsessive cleaner is just as likely to have it as the hoarder. Some have a phobia of germs, some don’t, and some have superhuman tolerance of them. Some count. Some have anxiety over asymmetry. Some can’t stand certain numbers. Some have specific routines in a specific order. Some get repetitive thoughts like a broken unwanted record (including music lyrics, suicidal ideation, gif of a parasite, and so on). Some have a thought or a random question and literally can’t focus on other things until they do the thing or answer the question (clean the bathroom, how are needles made?, did I leave the light on?, and so on) and ignoring it can cause anxiety. Some have food aversions. Some can randomly go on a kick of not eating anything but certain things for days or even months at a time until their diet goes back to normal. Most know someone with it right now and never know it. Some have it themselves but because they don’t present how they think it’s supposed to look, they have no idea. Obsessive thoughts and/or compulsive actions creates an odd array of symptoms.

Brought to you by a woman with OCD. My bedroom is a train wreck, I forget to wash my hands at times, I bite my nails, I hate walking on floors inside with intentionally asymmetrically patterned floors about as much as I hate walking in dog doo, I have foods I will not eat because of their texture, I ate cereal with even bits per spoon until I was nearly 30, and so many more things than I could list.

Bluewind, the more you talk about what you OCDis like, the more I can relate.

Do you get that thing where you can’t start something unless you have time to finish it right?

Like for me my place is often a fucking disaster because if I start cleaning, I can’t stop until it is better homes and gardens level spotless. Up to and including pulling an all-nighter on a work day.

Like in my comment above, I am right there with you. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is tough but it can really help. The one routine I have managed to improve so far is my glasses, I used to take anywhere from 20 minutes to multiple hours to put my glasses on, I /had/ to get it just right and if I was interrupted, I would freak out and have an anxiety attack.
Nowadays after my round of CBT and reading a CBT book aimed at OCD, while I still cant just put them on instantly like a “normal person” would, it takes me under a minute everytime ever since, and if they dont feel right or I am interrupted, I can carry on and be okay.

I dunno if I would call my reaction to not doing the thing anxiety so much as it really pisses me off. It is there and it’s wrong and it just bugs me in its wrongness, if that makes sense? Not an anxious thing more like a mosquito buzzing in your ear as you try to sleep. Or maybe that’s me because I can’t sleep with one in my room. Anyway. The wrongness irritates. It will not be ignored.

Im no doctor but that sounds exactly like anxiety to me. And I am only saying that because I have lived it, anxiety is why you have the huge urge to deal with the thing, any irritation from that is a secondary emotion brought along by it. Lots of people have different emotional reactions to anxiety, ive had irritation and anger too.

I do the opposite. I’m kinda lazy, but once I start something I can’t stop until it’s done the way I want like art project or creating a character on a game. You should have seen my researching, designing; and painting my mailbox. I was a nightmare! XD

I have to clean things a certain way when I clean. If I stop cleaning fir anything other than a bathroom break, I won’t start back until it’s on my schedule to clean that again.

I’m so glad I only have obsessive compulsive traits, and not the full disorder (according to my doctor at least, but he’s only human).

The ‘not eating foods because of their texture’ thing resonated with me. There are quite a few things I refuse to eat because of their texture — non-string beans, avocado, most crackers, whole wheat bread, smoked salmon. I thought it was just me being picky, but it’s interesting that it could be one of my obsessive compulsive traits.

It’s one not everyone knows about. Some of us have issues with texture having some we enjoy and seek out and some we avoid. It affects us the same if it’s in our mouths, on our faces, or on our bodies.

She is missing a very easy solution. Buy shower sandals and then cover them with disposable waterproof (or at least water resistant) shoe covers (she can even reinforce the seal with duct tape). When she’s done, she can toss the covers. Boot covers would be best because they go up higher (Sal might even know about them riding a bike and all). Even if the sandals get wet, they would be getting wet from water coming from the top and not the stuff on the floor. She might be able to create makeshift ones out of shower caps and duct tape if some need to be ordered, but they might sell them somewhere close enough for her to get to.

Something that might work for a while would be to keep a plastic tub just inside your front door. Fill the tub an inch or so deep with whatever you feel will kill the nasties: bleach, germicide, whatever. Whether you wear shower sandals or not, step into the tub when you return from the shower. If you do wear shower sandals, leave them soaking in the tub.

But it’s far better to address the real problem, and tell yourself that the perceived danger causing you anxiety and fear is not real; it’s an illusion created by the OCD.

Btw, you can get flip flops for a dollar at a Dollar Store or a couple bucks at General Dollar Store. At that price she could throw them away. $20 bucks is a bit steep for most college students. Or Hell, why not a pack of socks cheap. Peal ’em off and throw ’em out, or save in a plastic bag, and wash in one washer alone?.

Wait, how the heck has Joyce been showering until now? She has yet to saw off her feet, and someone this concerned with hygiene has most definitely taken many showers in the six weeks or so they’ve been in college.

Poor Joyce! This and her issues with food made from mixed ingredients make me wonder if she has a mild form of anxiety disorder or is even on some behavioural disorder spectrum.

However, that isn’t the real story of this strip. The real story of this strip is in panel 1 and Roz in her pimp suit/Michael Jackson costume. What is she up to over there? Campaigning for the RA post by making wild promises she has no intention of keeping (a lesson she has learned from Robin).

No, you weren’t. You expressed your distaste at her goals. And that’s it. I literally just checked. Roz, you’ve pulled out the knives for.

Like, there were not a lot of folks trying to point out that Dotty was also being a manipulative politician once Roz came on screen, and you were not in that number. And I know for a fact I’m the only one who pointed out that it Dotty being a politician was causing her to indirectly be a shit to Carla (By continuing to enable Walky being a shit to Carla).

Because Dorothy has never been portrayed as a manipulative politician. You were pointing out something no one else saw–and people still didn’t agree with even after they saw your explanation.

I can tell by the name you call her (She goes by Dorothy, not Dotty) that you don’t particularly like Dorothy. That’s fine, but I object when you use that as a reason why someone else is being bad for liking someone you like.

Dorothy’s main flaws are that she’s too much of an optimist, and that she can be a bit controlling in her relationships. She’s never come across to me like a manipulative politician.

Dorothy literally got called out on pretending to be altruistic for the sake of politics YESTERDAY in comic time. When she was going around gathering information on people’s problems and lives and framed it as ‘just checking in’ instead of admitting she was trying to angle for the RA job. Her real reason is fine, but that is not what she copped to until she got called out.

Also:

A) Dotty is a nickname plenty of people use both affectionately and non-affectionately. Saying Lailah calling her Dorothy means she doesn’t like her is silly.

B) Plenty of people agreed with Lailah that it was manipulative of Dorothy to do that. Others thought it was crappy for other reasons (do not write private information down in front of people while you speak, Dorothy, rude and asking for someone to snatch it).

You don’t like Roz. Cool. Others read her differently – and before you make that condescending as all get out argument again, no, it is not because they’re not paying attention or missing subtext. People are allowed to read characters differently.

Also, Dorothy’s flaws also include a bit of an ego, neuroses, and a difficulty making rough choices like what to do with the Ryan sighting. Pretending her flaws are only ‘a bit controlling’ and ‘too optimistic’ is disingenuous.

Put a different way, it’s the difference between “the thing this person is doing is wrong and they should stop” and “This person is scum for doing X”, even if unintentionally. People /really/ want to believe Roz is especially bad.

And right now, she’s just schmoozing. There’s a good chance she did that /anyway/. The hall /already/ liked her. It’s Roz, that’s part of what she does.

Yeah, I really don’t get it. I just can’t see that the stakes are high enough for all this hate.

Roz and Dotty play political campaign in the dorm. I think it’s hilarious. Personally I like both of them, but even if you don’t I really don’t see how any of them are doing something bad, let alone hate-worthy.

Once folks start to hate a character, they’ll latch on anything that backs it up until someone snaps them out of it. Roz earned a lot of people’s ire when she berated Joyce for figuring out that gay people are a) human and b) denied aid by many.
Thus was ushered in the Great Drummening.

Dorothy has never schmoozed in the entire comic. She never pretends to be anyone she’s not.

Schmoozing is pretty much universally regarded as a crappy thing politicians do. It’s what Robin does all the time, and Leslie just had a huge thing where she told her how crappy it is.

Plus Roz has just been shown to be crappy from the start of the comic. She’s always been the liberal asshole to Dorothy and Leslie’s caring liberal. And the asshole liberal to all the asshole conservatives in the comic.

Yes, she’s not absolutely awful, as she did care when she thought rape happened. And she has used her assholishness for good against Mary. But she’s still never been portrayed as a particularly good person.

It wouldn’t bother me at all if I hadn’t had to wade through so many people acting like Roz was a good person and might be a good RA over objectively good and moral Dorothy.

And now we have people like Emily insisting that anyone who dislikes her must be racist. It can’t be because she’s never been portrayed as particularly good or likable.

Except yesterday, I guess, when she was pretending to be altruistic when she was actually just looking to angle at the RA gig? She definitely was pretending to be something she wasn’t there.

Schmoozing isn’t the problem with Robin – or at least, not her main problem. Her main problem is that she’s an LGBT+phobic asshole and is closeting herself, whether consciously or unconsciously, so that it doesn’t rebound and hurt her.

We’ll have to disagree about Roz. The only times I can recall that was particularly assholish was 1) When she didn’t let Joe know the full situation wrt the sex tape’s release (by not telling him she was Robin’s sister and it would cause a firestorm) and 2) When she chewed out Joyce after Leslie asked her to stop (which I’m only noting because it was rude to Leslie – Joyce utterly deserved someone calling her on her hypocrisy and Dorothy sure as shit wasn’t gonna, and Joyce herself noted it was a good thing).

A) Again, people are allowed to disagree with you and read Roz differently.
B) You didn’t ‘have’ to do anything of the sort. Nobody MADE you read the comments.

Emily noted that people being harsher in their hate for a WoC is not unusual. And it isn’t. Even if said WoC is utterly loathsome, you will find people being harder on her than on a white woman who does the same thing or things that are just as bad or worse.

Ooooorrr they didn’t think she was being that awful? Nobody needs to be thinking of Walkyverse!Roz to like this Roz (and for the record: Walkyverse Roz is 50 times worse than this Roz has ever been).

So, you’re admitting there is no good grounds for comparison as Roz is nowhere near as bad as Drumpf and has some potential qualifications for the job, but you’re going to make that comparison anyways? Okay. Great.

And no, we can’t, because again, it is possible to read Roz differently. Even if she were, Roz would be a jerk. Trump is a direct threat on numerous marginalized people’s lives and civil rights (and let’s not talk about his nuclear policy oh dear god). That’s not even comparing apples and oranges anymore – that’s comparing an apple to a dump truck. People have told others a million times why it’s not a good comparison. Yet here it goes again.

You don’t have to have a disorder to be this obsessive about germs and gross things. You just have to see someone get sick first, and then realize you can’t afford treatment if it happens again! It’s a proud American tradition!

To all my fellow readers (apologies for those of which this comes late and those it comes early)
Merry Christmas
Chag Hanukkah Sameach
Happy Kwanzaa
Feliz Navidad and Las Posadas
Blessed Yule
Happy Boxing Day
I wish you happiness and prosperity (Pancha Ganapati)
Happy Dōngzhì/Winter Solstice Festival
Shab-e Chelleh/Yalda greetings
Happy Bodhi Day
Enlightened Newtonmas
Happy Zamenhof Day
Joyous Soyal
And to all I missed a happy holiday

like I’ve been able to fight it off, half by thorough imagining (the germs are COMING OFF… getting WASHED OFF… this soap is MURDERING THEM… and their bodies are just useful building materials for my skin mwahahaha… they are DEAD), half by THOROUGH SELF-DISTRACTION

but it absolutely 100% happens sometimes

I oscillate between ‘oh my god being covered in mud from head to toe is fun’ and ‘OH MY GOD THAT HAIR TOUCHED ME’… it’s the better option compared to being in the latter mode all the time i know >_<

I thought the joke at the end was gonna be that clearly Sarah HAS been washing her flippers in the sink Joyce washes her teeth in and Joyce has only just realised that she’s covered in communal filth from the inside out via Sarah’s indifference to such things.

Joyce really does seem to have contamination issues. And while she’s still at a joking phase, these things do often wind up getting worse if you don’t deal with them.

It also makes perfect sense for a fundamentalist upbringing to reinforce these issues. Contamination is really big in the Old Testament.

It would be nice if getting over this would work as a metaphor for her getting over her fundamentalist upbringing. But I think she’s better off in her upbringing, and only getting worse with contamination fears.

BTW, that means that, rather than finding ways to keep doing what she’s doing more conveniently, she actually needs to do the opposite. She can build up to slowly, by only barely touching it for a second or adding one bit of food to another food.

But she needs to work on it. Though, I of all people know that’s easier said than done.

Fair enough. Maybe it’s just because I also hate food touching (texture reasons) that I didn’t see it. And yeah, I’d probably also pick apart tacos because eating them put together would make me gag as my brain went ‘Wait, is this food pepper? Is it meat? Okay, I can’t decide, out it goes.’

Whatever it is you’re doing different with your line and line weight in that final panel, keep doing it! It might just be me imagining things, but I think there’s something there I didn’t realise I’d been missing in your pencils/inking. Also, I realise this might be a superfluous comment, seeing as you probably drew this strip months ago. Still, love your work, and thank you so much for doing it!